


Sort Out Your Priorities

by whelvenwings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 08:32:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5041324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whelvenwings/pseuds/whelvenwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Priority Seating, for people who are pregnant, disabled or less able to stand, read the blue sign over the top of the seat.</p><p>Do you need it? he tried to say, with a pair of raised eyebrows and a lifting of his single crutch.</p><p>The woman clutched for her bag and stood up immediately, smiling in a way that seemed uncomfortable as she backed away to stand further down the train, wrapping a pale hand around a metal pole. Dean watched her go with some slight bemusement. What’s your hurry? It’s just a busted knee, I’m not a leper.</p><p>The driver’s voice came over the speaker, crackled thin like old newspaper, announcing that the train was soon to depart. Dean turned back to the seat, preparing himself for the relief of sitting down –</p><p>And saw that someone was already sitting down.<br/>________________________________________________<br/>Dean and Cas both have equal claims to use the ‘Priority Seating’ on a train, and neither of them are prepared to back down and let the other use the seat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sort Out Your Priorities

The London Underground was hot as an armpit, and Dean was still wearing his coat. He considered trying to shrug it off as he made his way down the stairs to his platform, but decided it wouldn’t be worth the hassle. He only had to ride the train for one stop, and then he’d be heading back outside; he’d be at the mercy once more of this new city’s inquisitive, biting winds – and its ice-slicked sidewalks. Dean had already fallen prey to their twin efforts once; now, he limped down the steps carefully, resting the majority of his weight on a single crutch to save his busted knee the strain. It still hurt. Part of him wished he’d never come here, never decided to study in England. It wasn’t as though there weren’t Engineering courses in the States.

It set his teeth on edge just to stand, let alone to jolt his way down several flights of stairs. His crutch slipped under his sweaty hand, almost sending him sprawling down the last few steps; he ruefully smacked the end of the thing against a wall as he arrived on the platform, glancing up at the board to read when the next train would be arriving. Two minutes. That wasn’t too bad; he’d last. And he’d be able to sit down on the train.

He kept his mind off the constant ache and twinge in his knee by covertly observing the other people around him. There were quite a few of them, and more kept pouring down the stairs, shedding coats and peeling off hats and gloves. Nearest Dean, there was an old couple with matching fluffy white haircuts, a woman in a business suit, another in a leather jacket and a beanie. And on his other side, there was a middle-aged man with a briefcase, a teenage boy with headphones in, and –

Wow.

A guy who had to be around Dean’s own age – maybe even a student as well, judging by the books he was carrying under one arm. He had scruffy brown hair, sky-blue eyes and a grumpy expression. His face was all touchably soft-sharp angles, his skin tanned.

The guy shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, changing his grip on the books; he was holding them strangely, Dean noticed, not quite against his body. He realised that he’d been staring for too long just as the guy glanced over at him. Dean blinked and reddened slightly, before dropping his gaze to the floor. He could feel the other man’s gaze on him for a few long seconds, and tapped his crutch against the ground in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner. He considered pulling out his phone, but there wouldn’t be any signal down here, anyway. He could feel himself sweating under his coat, his knee groaning at him. People pressed in on all sides, the hum and chatter of their talk and the heat of their bodies aggravating in such a small space.

The screen above scrolled. One minute until the train arrived. Dean should have taken off his coat. Maybe when he got to sit down, he wouldn’t feel so overheated. To his left, he was peripherally aware of blue-eyes swaying from side to side. He resisted the urge to look over again. The guy probably already thought he was some kind of creeper.

With a balefully loud whine of metal, the train came screeching down the tunnel. It pulled up beside the platform, opening its doors in a hydraulic gasp of relief, sighing out overheated passengers. Dean limped over the gap between the train and the platform, pulling himself onto the train behind the fluffy-haired old couple and just in front of the guy who’d been standing to his left. Dean threw a look up and down the length of the carriage: no spare seats. Not even  _one._ He sighed, and turned to the seat closest to the carriage doors. He hated having to do this, but he knew he couldn’t stand up while the train jolted and swung its way through the tunnels.

 _Priority Seating, for people who are pregnant, disabled or less able to stand,_ read the blue sign over the top of the seat in question. Dean caught the eye of the woman sitting in it already; she looked young, and seemingly healthy, and… a little distracted by something to Dean’s left. Oh, it was the good-looking guy from earlier.  _I saw him first, lady._ He recaptured her attention and gestured questioningly to the seat.

 _Do you need it?_ he tried to say, with a pair of raised eyebrows and a lifting of his single crutch.

The woman clutched for her bag and stood up immediately, smiling in a way that seemed uncomfortable as she backed away to stand further down the train, wrapping a pale hand around a metal pole. Dean watched her go with some slight bemusement.  _What’s your hurry? It’s just a busted knee, I’m not a leper._

The driver’s voice came over the speaker, crackled thin like old newspaper, announcing that the train was soon to depart. Dean turned back to the seat, preparing himself for the relief of sitting down –

And saw that someone was  _already_  sitting down.

Not just anyone, either. It was the guy with the blue eyes – the guy he’d been trying not to stare at, the guy who was now staring at  _him_ with an expression of vague hostility, as though asking what his problem was.

“Hey,” Dean said stupidly, because he couldn’t believe anyone could be such an asshole. Stealing a seat from a guy with a crutch? Dean’s barely-born fantasies of asking the guy for his number, and possibly marrying him in Rome, died an untimely death. “Dude… that’s my seat.”

Blue-eyes squinted up at him, frowning. Dean raised his eyebrows, and waggled his crutch in what he hoped was an explanatory manner.

It did not have the desired effect. The guy blinked, and frowned some more.

“Guy, c’mon, help me out here,” Dean said, as the doors began to slide closed. “I can’t stand up while the train’s moving.”

More frowning. Dean glanced down at the books in his lap, and saw a name written on the topmost one, an exercise book or notepad.  _Castiel Novak,_ he deciphered. Castiel. What a pretentious name. Was it usual to have names like that in England?

“I sat down here first,” Castiel said, and Dean’s mouth dropped open – with the unfairness of the statement, of course, and  _not_  the fact that the guy had a  _hell_ of a voice. He was American, too, by his accent. Dean glanced around at his fellow passengers, all of whom were studiously reading newspapers or listening through headphones. No help from that quarter, then. The doors were beeping, but not closing. Someone must have tried to get on late, and got stuck. Dean had a few more moments to secure the seat before the train left the station.

“Dude,” Dean said, his tone sharpening. “You’re in Priority Seating.”

“I know,” ‘Castiel’ said, pulling back his shoulders ever so slightly in response to Dean’s anger.

“So… move!”

“I have a perfect right to be here. I indicated to the woman that I needed the seat and she got up.”

“Dude, she got up for  _me_! That seat is supposed to be for people who are less able to stand!”

“And I fall into that category, currently,” Castiel said, now openly hostile in his looks, his frown one of offence rather than puzzlement. Dean clenched his fists.

“Yeah, like hell,” he scoffed, and a few people nearby shuffled their newspapers as they shifted in their seats. The train still wasn’t moving, and the doors were still open. Over the gramophone tannoy, Dean heard the driver mumbling incomprehensible apologies. Castiel, meanwhile, was looking increasingly incensed.

“I have just as much right to use this seat as you, if you are able to stand,” he snapped.

“Like you’re struggling,” Dean said sarcastically, and Castiel visibly  _fumed._

Dean ignored the part of his brain that was still whispering about how good-looking he was, with that dark coat and scarf and messy hair.

“I  _am_ ,” Castiel snapped, and Dean made no further response than a disbelieving snort. With a suddenness that had Dean taking a wobbly step back, Castiel surged to his feet, dumped his books on the seat behind him, grabbed the bottom of his coat and wrenched it up. In a sudden, dizzying turn of events, Dean found himself staring at the muscled stomach of an incredibly hot guy, in the middle of a tube train in front of a whole carriage of people.

“Dude,” Dean said, scrunching up his face as though he was offended by the brief glimpse of abdominal muscles that he’d permitted himself to take. “Put it away!”

“Look at this!” Castiel said, drawing his finger in a line over one side of his torso. Dean swallowed, and then glanced over. Those jeans of Castiel’s were low-slung enough that the waistband of his boxers was just showing, and – above them, bruised and red, was a freshly-stitched scar.

“I had my appendix removed,” Castiel snapped, still standing. Dean cleared his throat.

“Yeah?” he said aggressively, because he’d come this far, and he wasn’t going to give up that damned seat now. “Well, I busted my knee. Broke my patella in a fall. I’d show you the bruising but  _my_ injury’s too painful for me to be able to manage it, so.”

Castiel looked as though he wouldn’t be averse to kicking Dean in the knee, just to check whether or not it really hurt.

“I have a right to that seat,” he said, fists clenched.

“ _So do I,_ ” Dean replied, squaring off as best he could. “Where are you getting off?”

There was a beat of silence.

“At the next stop,” Castiel admitted, grudgingly.

“Aha!” Dean said smugly. “So you barely need the seat. I might as well have it.”

“Where are  _you_ getting off?” Castiel shot back.

“…. um.”  _Damn._  “The – the next stop.”

Castiel’s expression could have withered half the Amazon jungle. Dean shrugged it off as best he could.

“Look, man, I think we both know that I should have that seat. The woman was looking at me when she stood up.”

“She looked at me  _before_ she stood up,” Castiel said, raising a pedantic finger. Dean resisted the urge to swat at it. “Therefore, she got up  _because_ of me. The seat is rightfully mine.”

“Well, I don’t think that’s true,” Dean blustered.

“No? Then let’s go ask her,” Castiel said, making to push past Dean, who grabbed onto his coat.

“What are you  _doing_?” Dean hissed.

“I’m going to go ask that woman whether she –”

“We can’t go harassing women on the train because  _you_  won’t give up a Priority Seat!”

“ _You_ won’t give it up,” Castiel corrected him crossly, though there was a slight edge of humour to his gaze when he met Dean’s eyes that almost had Dean smiling.

He frowned instead. This was  _serious._

“Look, just give me the seat,” Dean said, faking exasperation. That usually worked on Sam, making him think that the argument was boring, getting him to lose interest in it.

“No,” said Castiel. “You.”

“No,” Dean snapped. “ _You._ ”

Castiel made to push past Dean, back towards the seat. Dean grabbed Castiel’s arm, using his body to blockade the path. They scuffled for a brief few seconds, gingerly, each trying not to really hurt each other or themselves – and then the driver’s voice returned, setting them both to stillness for a moment.

“ _Ladies and gentlemen, sorry for the delay. We are now ready to depart. Mind the closing doors, please, stay clear of the closing doors._ ”

Dean and Castiel looked into each other’s eyes for the briefest of moments. The doors of their carriage began to close, beeping as they went. As one, both of them released the other and made a last-ditch effort to sit in the chair first. Castiel pulled on Dean’s coat collar; Dean pressed the palm of his hand flat to Castiel’s face, pushing him backwards. He was about to sit down, when Castiel ducked under his arm, and slid into the seat – and a half-second later, Dean landed on top of him.

Castiel yelped, and Dean struggled to stand up, but the train started moving and his feet slipped on the floor. He was about to slide off Castiel’s lap and onto the train’s dirty floor… when a pair of strong arms wrapped around his waist.

“What – what are you…?” Dean shouted, over the screeching of the train.

“Stay still,” came the curt response.

“What – but – are… you OK?”

“I am fine.”

There was a pause, and then –

“This is actually surprisingly comfortable.”

Dean allowed himself to relax just a touch. Castiel’s arms were a firm cinch around him, holding him close.

Less than a minute later, the doors were opening onto the next station, where both Dean and Castiel were alighting. They helped each other to their feet, and limped together onto the platform. After the train had wailed its way down the tunnel and away into the dark, the pair of them found themselves still standing next to each other, not quite ready to step apart, peel away into permanent separation. Dean scuffed one foot lightly against the ground, and jarred his knee, and stopped. He looked up, to find Castiel staring at him, with that tilt of humour in the angle of his head, the brightness of his eyes. Dean smiled, and Castiel smiled, too.

“So, um. You had appendicitis?” Dean asked. “Sounds rough.”

“It wasn’t pleasant,” Castiel acknowledged. “You fell over?”

“On ice,” Dean nodded. Castiel winced sympathetically.

A brief silence fell.

They stared at each other, and at the floor, and at each other, and at the floor, and at each other.

“You want to get a coffee?” Dean hazarded.

Castiel’s cheeks were tinged with pink as he nodded.

When they reached the coffee shop, they argued over who should sit on the wide chair facing the window.

When they got back to Dean’s house later than evening, they argued about who should sit on the side of the sofa nearest the radiator.

When Cas moved in, six months later, they argued over who should sleep on the side of the bed without the squeaky spring in the mattress.

The best answer, they found every time, was to share.


End file.
